Updated Timeline

[updated again on March 27 to end the timeline in 1939 for now]
[updated to correct another typo, I probably need to figure out how to translate initials to longer names, but . . . for now I'll continue the obscurity.]

I'm trying to sort out if there is a good way to incorporate a timeline into a blog. So far, the tools I've heard of are beyond my coding skills, so for now I'm just pasting from a Word Table, it looks okay, but not that great.  I think I'll just periodically include updated timelines as I add more dates, but . . . perhaps I'll discover a more clever approach sometime.

Year	Events in The Overrepresented Family
10/24/1841	Sumner Barber born in Potsdam, New York. Son of Ira Barber (born in Vermont) and Mary Wright of Vermont
8/4/1865	Sumner Barber enlists in Ogdensburg, NY as private in 106th regiment age 21, he was a teacher
6/22/1865	Sumner Barber discharged from New York Voluntary Infantry, co. K, 106th regiment
2/24/1870	Sumner Barber receives DDS from Philadelphia Dental School
8/29/1872	Sumner Barber marries Ellen Geraldine Barton in Rochester, New York.
12/27/1874	Alice Barber born (later Alice Barber Halderman)
2/26/1878	John R. Barber born
1/10/1881	Fanny L. Barber born
5/19/1883	Alvin Barton Barber born named for his maternal uncle Alvin Barton of Rochester.
8/5/1886	Joseph L. Barber born
11/4/1889	Helen D. Barber born
9/27/1896	Peary Expedition with GRP in progress.
11/26/1902	GRP in Philippines
6/1/1904	Martha Wick (MAB) graduates from Normal School in Minnesota
6/8/1904	Sumner Barber applies for pension because of old age
7/28/1904	ABBsr order to SF
6/30/1907	ABBsr organizes fencing party
6/?/1908	ABB and LLB engagement announced
2/17/1909	Mrs. A. B. Barber returns on Japanese Liner
3/12/1909	ABBsr transfer to Washington announced in New York Tribune
6/13/1913	CLB born in Berkeley CA
9/11/1913	GRP and MAP married in Warrington, Minnesota
10/13/1914	Sumner Barber dies from a fall down stairs. He was in St. Vincent's Hospital, Portland, Oregon
11/13/1914	Ellen Barton Barber applies for widow's pension living at 483 East 16th St North.  Portland, Oregon
6/21/1922	GRP receives honorary degree from Stevens
10/7/1928	LLB is president of the Bryn Mawr Club of Washington
12/9/1933	EPB performs in Washington as part of the Varsity Players of Washington.
12/27/1933	EPB makes debut in Washington
6/10/1934	JBC married Dr. Sam Clark at Sky Meadow
5/?/1935	CLB graduates Harvard
6/29/1936	CLB and EPB marriage plans announced.
6/8/1939	ABBjr graduates from Sidwell Friends

Slight improvement by pasting HTML code from Excel into word and then pasting it here, but . . .

Society: Marta Aresvik Putnam and George Rockwell Putnam Materials in the 1910s, Washington DC style

One of the coolest (and yes, frustrating) parts of using search words on the "overrepresented" family in digitized newspapers is that some digitized newspapers have no ability to tell you where the family name appears. One of the most useful search sites for my beginning steps has been in the digitized version of the Washington Herald, available for free at the Library of Congress's Digital Newspaper Project, and the contemporaneous version of the Washington Post, available by subscription through ProQuest and in my case the DC Library . But useful and frustrating are often different in digital research. Still having to scroll through endless "society" columns trying to find mention of my family did start to teach me about what was (and was not) included in these columns. So I'll start with what is and I might have to note what was not at the end.

Both my paternal grandmother's and grandfather's family came to DC in the 1900s (one from Oregon, the other from Iowa, but via many overseas assignments) and both had a role in "Society" as judged by the Washington Post. So let me tell you quickly some of the highlights in chronological order and sticking to the DC area. My grandmother's father, George Rockwell Putnam, came to DC around 1910 as single man. He had been chosen to reorganize the Lighthouse Bureau, a section of the U.S. Coast Guard. Lighthouses are romantic to us now, but they were crucial to shipping at the time. Yet, the appointment of lighthouse keepers had more to do with who you knew than what you could do. G.R. Putnam changed this.
But he was also a semi-important figure in society. He was the guest of Dr. and Mrs. J. H. Gore at a dinner on February 4, 1910, alongside the Siamese Minister. By July, he and his cousin, Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress, are leading the Cosmos Club. {Younger readers might appreciate that this club was where the lawyer for Monica Lewinsky stayed during the impeachment hearings of President Clinton}. His appearance is less obvious until 1913 when he marries Martha Moller Wick, a teacher in Washington State, a migrant from Norway in 1904, and reared in Minnesota. The family story is that they met on as cross-country railroad trip. It is likely that George Rockwell was returning from inspecting lighthouses in Alaska and that Marta was going home on a visit. The Post reports on these "nuptials" and soon after the Putnam family is establishing themselves in good style in DC.
By April 24, 1914, they are being hosted at the Army-Navy Club by various people including the postmaster and his wife Mrs R. C. Burleson. Indeed the Burlesons are clearly close friends, which is interesting to me because Mrs. Burleson was a leader of the Suffrage Parade of 1913 which I discuss in my book on Marching on Washington (UC Press, 2003).

To me, this is cool because like many I had an understanding on my family based on stories, and the historical research is changing it. That story always ran that Marta Aresvik Putnam (as she became known) was not a radical and it was Lucy Lombardi Barber who was. But my searching in these online sources show that both women supported suffrage. Thus the Putnam's friendship with the Burleson was not just a requirement of "heads" of division of President Wilson's government, but also something that represented the real interests of the women in the gatherings.


I am growing tired. But I hope to add more postings of the nature of Washington society life from the Barber's perspective soon.

The Public and the Private: Or My Great Grandmother fights off burglers

I think one of the issues that I have always loved to explore in history is what is revealed easily and what do people what to keep close to their hearts. If you study women's history like I did from a relatively early age, you learn that what is close to the heart (otherwise known as private) is often quite the most interesting stuff and what is public is often so shaped by circumstances that it appears boring. Thus, the poem from my hometown poet, Emily Dickinson, on "I'm nobody" which includes the line "How dreary to be somebody, How public like a frog" [checked thanks to excess of good internet sources on Dickinson]. I hope you have your pop-up blocker on for that link, but the reality is that quick access to some sources is worth ignoring or investing in some pop up blockers. I'd like to find everything for free without ads, but some sites do the republishing or the aggregation and need the money. [Friends, remind me to tell you about a fellow grad student from Brown who took the risk on internet commentary and is now useful and income producing but I am too tired to discuss this approach now.]

I'm not going to address that what is public might look boring, but in my opinion rarely is today. Instead, I'm quickly sharing just the shell of a story that I found through the miracles of digitized newspapers: I.e. "D.C. Mother Scares Off 3 Robbers." it is about my great grandmother Lucy Lombardi Barber (who gave me or shares my name). It is not available for free but if you have access to Proquest Digitized newspaper, the link on the title should work. If not, here's the quick summary:
My grandfather's brother Alvin Barton Barber, Jr (who I never met) was held up at about 1:00 am in the morning and the "carjackers" forced him and his friend Rogers Albritton to drive back to his parents house in Northwest Washington. There in the early morning of July 1947, they found Lucy Barber who called the police and threatened them. The robbers fled on foot, saving the car, and the cash on hand. My great uncle and his friend had little cash on hand. The Washington Post ran the story because (I assume) it was cool that a white woman in Northwest had drove off robbers of her son and his friend with a phone call to the police rather than with weapons.

So this is a "public story" that when I shared with my father and his siblings and cousins, none had heard. It was not part of the considerable number of stories passed down from generation to generation. There are reasons I am sure that a public story did not become a family story. And if anyone wants to speculate, I welcome your inquiries. I might have some more answers or not.

I like this complexity, but I also find it hard to write about. Given the time and everything, I'll sign off now (how about that for a dated phrase). I feel as though I need a picture though, so let's see what I can do. Here's a picture of (I think) Lucy Sr's father Cesar Maurice Lombardi of Rice University. I might be off by a generation. If so, apologies and corrections, PLEASE

From Drop Box

Barbers and Poland in the 1920s

My great grandfather Alvin Barton Barton and his wife Lucy Lombardi Barber went to Poland in the 1920s to help rebuild the Polish railway system. "Vin" aka A.B. Barber was the principal, but my sense from family history is that Lucy wanted to go along and she brought the 4 children, Geoffrey (jeff), C. L. (ciel, or Joe, or my grandfather), Janet, and A. B. jr (Vinnie then, later Bart) quite enthusiastically. Today my father sent some letters written during their time then. What stands out for me is my great grandmother telling about how much her children were assaulted by german children during this period. All of them, ages 8-12, faced gangs of children who regularly punched/beat them up. None of them had encountered this is Washington, DC before. My great grandmother describes this as good for them but is clearly disturbed that her children must fight back to survive. She is proud that they do, though she writes that she is a "pacificist" and is not happy to discover a growing hatred of Germans. In case, anyone wants 'fair and balanced,' she's not too happy about the power of Polish Jews either.

As much as I feel like I lived through some interesting times, this adventure does fascinate me. It is well documented in the archives. My Zotero database indicates these sources
Register of the American Relief Administration. European Operations Records, 1919-1923 as well as this report:
Report of European technical advisers mission to Poland, 1919-1922
and several other sources.

I have to do some family diplomacy to get wider access to these letter, but in the meantime, I'm glad to know they exist.

About the term Overrepresented

From The Overrepresented Family

I've come to call my musings on my family history story about the Overrepresented Family because I'm extremely aware that in contrast to many people who must search hard for records of their families or historical communities in any sort of source, my family is not like that. In historical practice of the 1960s-1990s, it was common to refer to certain groups -- women, ethnic minorities, immigrants, workers -- as underrepresented in the historical record. Before historians spent considerable time digging through archives, rethinking what kind of sources were important, it was the case that these groups rarely appeared in textbooks, dissertation topics, or newspaper articles. In the United States, newspapers often served particular communities and libraries often only saved and preserved the ones representing the elite of society. For family historians who came from such background, looking for their family histories is still very difficult. Searching for the records of immigrants, African Americans, poor people is very difficult. When I worked as an archivist at the California State Archives , I'd encourage all genealogists to check the index to prisoners in California State Prisons, because if a relative had been to prison there were great records including photographs and in some cases court records.

But in my family, I don't have to use such sources in the same way. Particularly on my father's side which will be the focus of most musings, his parents came from families that were prominent in various societies and positions. A bibliography I've been keeping on references to my family in published sources, mostly found digitized on the internet, now has over 300 references. My paternal great grandfathers were both prominent Washingtonians in the 1910s-1960s: George Rockwell Putnam served as the first civilian Commissioner of United States Lighthouses from 1910 to 1935?. The other, Alvin Barton (A. B. and Vin) Barber served in various roles for the American Chamber of Commerce and was a member of the Committee of 100. My paternal great grandmothers were equally engaged. Marta Aresvik Putnam is the only immigrant in the group, she came from Norway at age 4. She was regularly mentioned in the society columns of Washington and was a woman suffragist and a dedicated club woman. Likewise, my great grandmother Lucy Lombardi Barber was a suffragist and a club woman. She is the only one of the four that I met since she lived to 96. She was also a historian who wrote the Nursery History of the United States in 1916 when she had three children. It is not the best history book ever, but it is fun to flip through and a 1920 version called the Young People's History of the United States is available thanks to the Internet Archive digitizing book project.

Indeed a lot of the research I have collected so far has been greatly assisted by both the Internet Archive and Google Book's projects. I've found organizing my research to be greatly helped by Zotero, a free open source citation tracker that works with Firefox. I have an open list of my citations available here:
Family Bibliography

That's enough for now. Like all blogs this will evolve and I'm not sure where now. But feel free to comment or ask questions.